


Our Story

by annalore



Category: National Football League RPF
Genre: Angst, Denver Broncos, M/M, New England Patriots, Weirdness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-22
Updated: 2015-05-22
Packaged: 2018-03-31 16:30:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3985006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annalore/pseuds/annalore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Someday, I'm gonna tell our story, he says.</p>
<p>Peyton reflects on his relationship with Tom.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Our Story

Someday, I'm gonna tell our story, he says. With an easy smile and an open expression. So happy. So sure that it will happen exactly the way he sees it.

Our story, I think.

I wonder why he feels like it's something the world would want to know.

Someday, he promises between sweet kisses, eyes dark and intent.

It's easy to think of him as my sweetheart, because he's everyone's sweetheart. That improbable tale of success that everyone loves to hear, with the hardware to go along with the glory. But I get to hear him laugh and claim it doesn't matter, and know that deep down he's lying. Know that he wouldn't be who he is without it.

Someday, someday, someday.

After nearly fifteen years, I can barely remember the day we met or the manner in which we became friends. Just that it happened. That one day, he was someone who didn't matter, and another, he was someone who did. He grew in my awareness, so gradually that I can't put a time or a place to it.

For all the ways we're alike, there's a thousand that we're different. He likes to get dressed up and go out; it makes my skin crawl. He smiles at the press and acts like they're welcome to his life; I freeze them out and hide. He loves me with words and gestures and promises, and I... I try to see if my eyes alone can beg him not to go.

It's time, he says, one off season, a soft smile and a sort of bemusement on his face. I think retirement, but no, he's talking reactions and locker room impact, and he comes out to the press somewhere in the aftermath of the draft. He talks about the evolution of our culture and our sport and being a role model for the kids coming into the league.

Someday, he whispers in bed when he thinks I'm sleeping. Someday, maybe it can be you up there.

But I don't think so. I'm not built like him. He's had to fight his entire career, and it's made him strong, but I was born to this life. I never doubted for a minute, never had to overcome it. And I know that I can't just stand in front of the world and claim him as my own. He's not mine, doesn't belong to me, as much as he whispers it into my skin, breathes it in my ear in the dark.

Someday, the world will know I love you, he tells me solemnly, as we exchange vows in front of a minister and no one else.

But he doesn't say when.

He never says when.

I think he knows the truth. That I don't want anyone to know.

That I cringe away from the spotlight when it finds me.

That I never wanted the fortune or the fame, just the wind on my face and the ball in my hand.

That I never wanted him either, never wanted to expose all the private places inside me that he touches, that he sees.

So I try. I try to tell him I love him, that everything in me loves him. Here, quietly, in the dark, in the silence.

All the rest of our days.


End file.
